Time Warner Defies Subscriber Expectations

The big news coming out of Time Warner this morning was that the company is finally selling off its cable division, the second largest in the country (our pal Stacey at GigaOM says its the beginning of Time Warner’s death by 1,000 cuts). But the other, not-quite-as-big-but-still-big news from the earnings call was that Time Warner cable added 55,000 basic subscriptions during the quarter.

Analysts had predicted Time Warner would lose anywhere between 21,000 to 32,000 customers as cable companies wage a multifronted war against satellite, aggressive telcos and even a souring U.S. economy. Adding 55,000 isn’t huge, especially compared to the hundreds of thousands of video customers Verizon and AT&T are racking up, but at least Time Warner isn’t losing ground… yet.

Comcast reports tomorrow, which should further clarify the state of cable.